N03467:579
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal…
Discourses on various important subjects, nearly concerning the great affair of the soul's eternal salvation, viz. I. Justification by faith alone. II. Pressing into the Kingdom of God. III. Ruth's resolution. IV. The justice of God in the damnation of sinners. V. The excellency of Jesus Christ. : Delivered at Northampton, chiefly at the time of the late wonderful pouring out of the spirit of God there. / By Jonathan Edwards, A.M. Pastor of the Church of Christ in Northampton. ; [Three lines from Deuteronomy]
Boston: printed by S. Kneeland and T. Green, 1738
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
But however he is thus above all, yet he is lowest of all in Humility. There never was so great an Instance of this Virtue, among either Men or Angels, as Jesus. None ever was so sensible of the Distance between God and him, or had a Heart so lowly before God, as the Man Christ Jesus. Matth. 11. 29. What a wonderful Spirit of Humility appeared in him, when he was here upon Earth, in all his Behaviour! In his Contentment in his mean outward Condition, contentedly living in the Family of Joseph the Carpenter, and Mary his Mother, for thirty Years together, and afterwards choosing outward Meanness, Poverty and Contempt, rather than earthly Greatness; in his washing his Disciples Feet, and in all his Speeches and Deportment towards them; in his cheerfully sustaining the Form of a Servant thro' his whole Life, and submitting to such immense Humiliation at Death!
2. In the Person of Christ do meet together, infinite Majesty, and transcendent Meekness. These again are two Qualifications that meet together in no other Person but Christ. Meekness, properly so called, is a Virtue proper only to the Creature: We scarcely ever find Meekness mentioned as a divine Attribute in Scripture; at least not in the New Testament; for thereby seems to be signified, a Calmness and Quietness of Spirit arising from Humility, in mutable Beings, that are naturally liable to be put into a Ruffle, by the Assaults of a tempestuous and injurious World. But Christ being both God and Man, hath both infinite Majesty and superlative Meekness.
Christ was a Person of infinite Majesty. It is he that is spoken of, Psalm. 45. 3. Gird thy Sword upon thy Thigh, O most mighty, in thy Glory and thy Majesty. 'Tis he that is mighty, that rideth on the Heavens, and in his Excellency on the Sky. 'Tis he that is terrible out of his holy Places; who is mightier than the Noise of many Waters, yea, than the mighty Waves of the Sea; before whom a Fire goeth, and burneth up his Enemies round about; at whose Presence the Earth doth quake, and the Hills do melt; who sitteth on the Circle of the Earth, and all the Inhabitants thereof are as Grasshoppers; who rebukes the Sea and maketh it dry, and drieth up the Rivers; whose Eyes are as a Flame of Fire, from whose Presence, and from the Glory of whose Power, the Wicked shall be punished with everlasting Destruction; who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, that hath Heaven for his Throne, and the Earth for his Footstool, and is the high and lofty One who inhabits Eternity, whose Kingdom is an everlasting Kingdom, and of whose Dominion there is no End.